Edward (Ted) Sayers' clinical skills, leadership qualities and outgoing, friendly nature established him as a dominant figure in post-war New Zealand medicine. He was born in Christchurch into a family with few resources. A scholarship enabled him to enter Christ's College and matriculate but family circumstances then required him to leave aged fifteen. He worked as a clerk for two years before entering the Otago Medical School from which he graduated in 1924.

After one year as house physician at Wellington Hospital he took up his vocation as medical missionary and having acquired the Diploma in Tropical Medicine in London he spent seven years from 1927 in the Methodist Mission at Gizo in the Solomon Islands. During this time his research in malaria led to the subsequent (1940) award of the Cilento Medal (Australian) in recognition of his contribution to the health of Solomon Islanders. He found time to send mosquitoes to the London School and snakes to the British Museum. During this time in the Solomons he married Jane Lumsden Grove and the first two of their six children (Kathleen, Margaret, Nancy, Pamela, Edward and John) were born. The Mission closed in 1934 and he went to London passing MRCP after a cram course and returned to Auckland to begin a general practice. His outstanding clinical skills were soon recognised and in 1938 he became a pioneer in New Zealand in exclusively consulting medicine and was appointed to the visiting staff of Auckland Hospital.

On the outbreak of war he was called up to the New Zealand Medical Corps and left for the Middle East in the 2nd Echelon with the rank of captain to join the 1st NZ General Hospital as a specialist in tropical medicine. By the time the War reached the Pacific he was in command of the Medical Division of the Hospital and because of his special understanding of tropical disease in the Pacific he was transferred to the command of the 4th General Hospital at Noumea in New Caledonia as colonel. Here he established excellent rapport with American physicians and his assistance to the American Armed Services was recognised by the award of the American Legion of Honour. This relationship continued on his return to Auckland in 1944 to resume consulting practice. Here a large American base hospital had been established preparing for the casualties expected in the invasion of Japan and he was impressed by the concept of the Grand Round. He introduced Auckland Hospital physicians to the idea in the 1950s and it proved an excellent reminder of EGS from then on.

A Foundation Fellow of the College, he became chairman of the Dominion Committee, a councillor, and nominee of the College on the Medical Council of NZ, of which he was Chairman from 1956 to 1964. He was a censor for many years. In 1956 he was elected president of the College, the first NZ fellow to be so honoured. This was in the relatively early and tedious days of trans-Tasman air travel and his two years as president required considerable sacrifice of time and money, as always given generously. His presidency had the very important effect of cementing the College links between New Zealand and Australia.

In 1957 he became sub-dean of the branch faculty of the Otago Medical School in Auckland. On the retirement of Sir Charles Hercus (qv 1) as dean he was invited to take up this post in Dunedin together with a chair in therapeutics. His inaugural lecture was on malaria, the subject of his MD thesis which was completed in 1959. As dean he was beset by problems but had many opportunities to bring medical education into the modern world. The clinical content of fourth and fifth year teaching was revised and enhanced, new chairs in pyschological medicine and in paediatrics were established and planning begun of the new library and administration block which now bears his name. His problems arose from changes in the funding of the Medical School and the establishment of the School of Medicine in Auckland. His deanship was crowned by his success in persuading the Wellcome Trust to fund a new building for medical research and a research chair in medicine, first occupied by Sir Horace Smirk in 1963.

He did not relinquish his clinical interests. His medical unit at Wakari Hospital was much sought after by junior medical staff and as in Auckland he established the tradition of a weekly Grand Round. On his retirement in 1967 he began a consulting practice which continued until shortly before his death and during this time he was chairman of the Medical Research Distribution Committee Lottery Fund and of the Scientific Committee of the National Heart Foundation. In 1971 he married Patricia Dorothy Coleman who was dean of the Home Science School in the University of Otago.

Ted Sayers began life in relatively disadvantaged circumstance, but with a devout Christian family background, a scholarly father who was paraplegic and a remarkable mother who slaved mightily on behalf of her four sons. His outstanding characteristics brought him to the top. His values, judgement and understanding of the human predicament were clearly influenced by his family environment, his missionary work and his wartime experiences. Many young physicians were helped to their feet by Ted. In the role of consulting physician he was a master, his maturity and judgement enabling him to give attention to all aspects of a human problem. He was able to relate easily to people in all walks of life. He was always ready to nail his colours to the mast, to stand up and be counted. He would say that the period in his life when he did most good as a doctor was that period in the Solomons.